1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to creating collections of items extracted from a library and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for creating collections using automatic suggestions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Personal media libraries are an important part of daily life, as users collect music, photographs, videos and the like (collectively referred to as “items”). One common task performed by users involves creating smaller collections from a library of items. Conventional techniques for creating collections, such as music playlists from personal media libraries involve either manually selecting items one-by-one or using an example-based recommendation system to automatically generate a collection. These conventional techniques offer either (1) a tedious manual process or (2) a regimented automated process with too little control over how items are selected.
Manually created collections require filtering by strict, individualized search criteria, followed by manually selecting each item for the collection, e.g., a drag-and-drop process. Alternatively, automatic solutions are typically either a fully random selection from a library or example-based, where a collection is automatically selected from a library based on the metadata associated with one or more example items provided by the user. Using either automated technique, the user has little control over the final collection, as the user can only provide examples and cannot express their goals or other, non-metadata related criteria for the content of the final collection.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus that creates collections by combining automatic suggestions based upon user-defined specifications for the collections with techniques enabling users to refine collections based on example items.